I have being driving since I was 17 so now 29 years and I remember in 1977-78 -79 we had some horrendous snow falls and ice and driving back home one night in a Mini after heavy snowfall ,drivers took their time and were caerful and we never had the problems we have today-it worked.
Even buses still operated and schools closed at their normal time,at my school it was busines as usual and it did not matter about the snow for pupils/teachers and as we were a Grammar School the catchment area was the whole city - i lived 3 miles away.
I think a large perecentage of the problems are infact caused by selfish so called clever drivers driving too fast and without care and also the 4 x 4 mob--whom should be taxed more imo.
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Couple of inches in Buxton yesterday. A nervous new colleague had Vredestein Quatrac 2 fitted to his Fabia a few weeks ago and set off home towards the Cat and Fiddle road at 2pm. Not in today!
Usual road polishers attempting to get away from our industrial estate were amusing.
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I wasna fu but just had plenty.
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GWK: Harpur Hill, or is it the estate on the Ashbourne side? Wife is from Buxton: we're supposed to be going there for Boxing day. Not looking fwd to bit between Macclesfield and Buxton, via Cat and Fiddle. Land rover territory in winter!
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Used to work at the Harpur Hill estate and now on the Staden Lane estate.
A much easier place to escape from!
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I wasna fu but just had plenty.
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Yoga at lunch top of Biddulph Moor (Staffordshire Moorlands). At least 3 inches of snow.
Lady with BMW523i parked 400 metres away as undriveable in unploughed lane.
Lady with BMW Z4 abandonned it last night at village shop - undriveavle in snow.
Fiestas/Clios etc all had no problems:-)
As I've ranted on before :-) rwd is us in snow and ice.
What point of driving a car that is undriveable at least 10 days a year here (especially when you need a car most in this weather).?
Of course, winter tyres.. but what point for only 10 days a year?
Rant over:-))))
madf
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My car is rwd on low profile tyres. I had no trouble on 2 inches of fresh snow or up the odd incline with snow/slush/packed snow. It's down to tactics. RWD are less forgiving of the brain deads that just polish the road :-) Having a good amount of petrol and an extra 10kg of rubbish in the boot also helped me I think...
I would like to get winter tyres for the cold weather but I can't find anywhere that sells cheap steel wheels. I think 16 inch rims would be good but I can't work out what profile I need to match 225/45 on 17s.... I know there is a tyre size calculator somewhere that will have it but I haven't found one yet.
teabelly
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Might a scrappy be your best bet for the wheels TB?
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Not sure whether I'd want to use wheels that someone could have written off their car in though Bazza :-)
That tyre rolling diameter calculator is very good. It looks like either 195/60 R16 or 205/55/R16s are the closest match. The latter under reads by 1% which might be better than over reading.
teabelly
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Theres several different tyre/ wheel size calculators on here; Its on the Wheel and Tyre Bible, about two thirds down the page:
www.geocities.com/chrislonghurst/
Cheers,
Rich
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Always check them - there are some incorrect tyre size calculators out there as well.
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In terms of wheels you need to check pcd, bore and offset as well. A reasonable guide is at www.rochfordtyres.co.uk/Fitment.asp?psearch=BMW
(you do have a bm ?)
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I was a little concerned that I would not be able to do as well in my auto Legacy as I did in the manual. Needn't have worried. Negotiated New Mills, lots of snow and icy patches, rode up the avenue covered in snow and ice as though it was dry. Turned onto my driveway, cruised up it, three inches of snow, no trouble. Stopped at the top, foot hard on brake pedal, handbrake on, sailed back down again, no control whatsoever, stopped just at the bottom as a wedge of snow built up under the wheels. It's never done that before. There must have been fresh snow over the icy surface. Lesson learned!
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Goodness me! There was a time when, if we were sitting at home swearing at the bolshevik TV and saw snow outside, we got up and fired up whatever we had and went out to have fun.
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"I think a large perecentage of the problems are infact caused by selfish so called clever drivers driving too fast and without care and also the 4 x 4 mob--whom should be taxed more imo"
Driving my "4x4" today at a very careful speed because of the conditions, it was the lunatic in a Golf GTI winging carefree down the outside lane and throwing slush everywhere, the lunatic in the Volvo S60 two inches off my back bumper and the lunatic in the white van that was going too fast to bring his vehicle to a safe stop at the junction end that should be "taxed more" for comlete brainlessness imo!
Also driving my "4x4" to work in black ice this morning, the display of sheer recklessness through excessive speed by drivers of a Mondeo, Fiesta, Punto, Mini, Mercedes and a BMW are the ones causing potential problems. Even passing by an Astra at 45 degrees up a tree doesn't slow these clowns down.
I hope your starting to see the picture.....it's the person and not the vehicle! - oh and by the way, I do pay more tax. Once for engine size and secondly because I use more fuel.
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oh 4x4 bashing - can anyone join in ?
Imho, there is a certain class of 4x4 driver that is a pain, these are the fashionable ones. I rarely see defenders and other 'working' 4x4's badly driven. I rarely see range rovers/X5's/ML's well driven. Too many (and to generalise - women) driving big cars for status and perceived safety when they do not have the skills to do so. I regularly meet big 4x4's on narrow country roads where the owners do not seem to want theor wheels to go within a yard of the edge of the road. Either they dont know the width of their vehicles or they are crap drivers. The others are the company director sort who seem to sit 3 feet from my rear bumper with headlights on main beam on the roads around the local industrial estates.
I agree it is driving standards that are the problem, but there are some cars that attract bad drivers. Of those I am not so worried about the corsa blue light brigade, if they hit me they will do much less damage than the feckless X5's.
I dont have a problem with 4 wheel drive - its a good thing, I've had subaru, audi and porsche awd cars and enjoyed the benefits of awd.
discuss ;-)
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oh 4x4 bashing - can anyone join in ?
Best car I ever had for snow was a Citroen GS. Very light, front wheel drive, adjustable suspension and the hand brake operated on the front wheels so if one wheel spun, you could stop it with the brake. Great great car, wish I still had it. Bit tricky to work on and suffered terminal rot in the end.
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Since we?re bashing chicks in 4x4s again... For 15 years I commuted across London, always looking for short cuts in the backstreets of Hampstead where there are millions of schools and millions of mums in 4x4s. I can honestly say not one of them ever caused a problem for me, not one of them worse than any bloke and absolutely never ever a situation where it?s larger size made any difference than if it had been a Focus. That is I have never been trapped by an SUV where had it been 5 cm narrower I could have got past. Never.
In fact, every road rage incident, every near punch-up, every idiotic aggressive, pointless, stupid, dangerous manoeuvre I have witnessed or been involved with have been blokes driving vans, cars or black cabs.
Ladies in SUVs are law-abiding, tax-paying, insured and MOTd and certainly far more pleasant to look at than the high percentage of scabby, shabby uninsured shower of crap that plagues our streets.
So leave them alone.
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>> oh 4x4 bashing - can anyone join in ? Best car I ever had for snow was a Citroen GS. Very light, front wheel drive, adjustable suspension and the hand brake operated on the front wheels so if one wheel spun, you could stop it with the brake.
My dad will agree with you there. He had one of those many years ago. Once drove home in snow which was so high, the roads were more like tunnels, because it was so deep. Not forgetting the about skinny tyres, they helped too apparently!
>>Great great car, wish Istill had it. Bit tricky to work on and suffered terminal rot in the end.
My dad would also agree with that too!
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I dont have a problem with 4 wheel drive - its a good thing, I've had subaru, audi and porsche awd cars and enjoyed the benefits of awd. discuss ;-)
Best post on the matter, all true.
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